Hunting Accidents

Hunting on the frontier had many drawbacks
besides firearms accidents. Among them were mishaps to horses
and the problems of preserving and safely storing game after
it was killed. The Nebraska State Journal of Lincoln on
September 25, 1869, included a letter from Victor Vifquain describing
his hunt along the Republican River south of Fort Kearny. Although
Vifquain and his friends intended to hunt chiefly buffalo, they
also bagged wild turkeys, elk, and antelope.

Vifquain said of one hunting mishap: "Mr.
Danford of Lincoln, made a magnificent chase of an antelope,
today. He was riding a magnificent little mare which once was
captured by the Indians. He set out after it and was gaining
rapidly, and was about ready to fire, when the mare set her foot
into a badger's hole and gave our hunter a terrible fall. In
the midst of the dust, which for a second was prevalent, nothing
could be seen but the mare's tail in the performance of her terrible
somersault. The rider was thrown to the ground some twelve feet
ahead, with such a force that it made me think of a bomb shell
plowing the soil. I rode towards the spot, fearing to find the
man dead; but nothing of the sort, he was trying to tighten the
girth of his saddle, and a nose bleeding was the only damage.
These badger holes are extremely dangerous. I have tried that
myself three or four times, and I advised chasers to be very
careful about them."

Vifquain noted as the expedition was preparing
to return home that "the meat was taken care of [perhaps
dried], but some twelve hundred pounds of elk meat got spoiled."

Members of a hunting party from Lincoln
several years later in 1877 also lost part of their game. From
The Daily State Journal, November 10, 1877: "The
hunting party, . . . that left this city last Tuesday, for a
few days hunt in Iowa, returned yesterday afternoon, bringing
home with them about one hundred mallard and teal ducks. The
party had a pleasant time and enjoyed themselves hugely. When
they arrived at the lake they found it partially frozen over,
and the ducks not so numerous as they were the week before. The
party estimated that they shot about 200 . . . , but a herd of
hogs getting into their tent when they were absent, devoured
about twenty-five, and seventy-five which they killed or crippled
on the lake they could not recover."